> Origins of Beer
The history
Once upon a time... Six thousand years ago, in a village between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, there was a woman who, as she returned home at sunset, left a bowl full of cereals outside her hut.
That night it rained heavily and the cereals became wet. However, the sun caused them to sprout the next day.
The sun became so hot that it killed off all the new shoots. It rained once more and those grains were left to soak in the water. Microorganisms in the atmosphere naturally set off the process of fermentation.
A few days later, an animal that was passing by drank from the bowl and immediately started behaving strangely. When the woman saw this she became curious, and she decided to taste the liquid in the bowl herself. She liked it and found it exhilarating.
Beer was born.
All that was left for mankind was to discover and reproduce this natural process.One of the main ingredients in beer is hops, which was “introduced” to beer production only in the 13th century by Bavarian monks. The word “Beer” dates from 1429. The Gaelic word Brai (malt) is at the root of the Latin word Bracium, while the Latin word Bibere (to drink) evolved until it became bere, biere and finally “beer”.
Brewing beer
There are many stages involved in brewing beer.
The first step is the preparation of the malt, which must mainly come from barley or other high quality, perfectly ripe cereals (barley was the first cereal to be cultivated by people).
Once selected and cleaned, the barley is left to soak in purpose-built vats, and for two or three days it receives the water and oxygen necessary to germinate. The water is often changed during this stage. When the barley is damp enough, it is left to germinate for about a week in specially-built containers: during this phase it is essential that the grains of barley receive plenty of oxygen.
When the radicle (the thin protruding shoot that emerges from the barley seed during germination and detaches during the malt drying stage) reaches two-thirds of the length of the seed, the malt is ready for drying, a process that serves to halt the germination process.
At this stage, the following production steps are decided on the basis of the type of beer one wants to brew.
The malted barley is milled into a flour, mixed with warm water and heated at high temperatures, around 65-68 degrees.
This is how the first phase of beer production ends, known as mashing, when malt is turned into must. This happens when the starch still present in the malt is turned into a sugar, called maltose.
After having been separated from the husks (the insoluble residues of the mixture that are later used as animal forage), the must is boiled.
The must is poured into a kettle and boiled.
The length of time it is boiled depends on the type of beer one wishes to brew, however it is usually never less than an hour and never more than two hours and a half.
Boiling – which also serves to sterilise and concentrate the must – is done with steam or using jets of high pressure boiling water.
Interestingly enough, some breweries still use direct heat.
During the boiling stage, another very important step takes place: hops is added to it. This gives beer its peculiarly bitter taste, as well as its unmistakable aroma.
The must is cooled and left at a temperature which is just right for fermentation: between 4 and 6 degrees when bottom fermenting and between 15 and 20 degrees when top fermenting. It also ensures that the fermentation process is perfect, by introducing a sufficient quantity of oxygen to the must.
Once the must is cooled, we add yeast.
Once this crucial fermentation phase is over, the beer is left to age in purpose-built vats for a length of time that varies between three and four weeks.
Finally, it is filtered and bottled, or stored in barrels.
Bottled beers are then divided into two categories: those that are pasteurised and those that are not.
Pasteurisation involves heating beer to a temperature of 60°, which destroys some microorganisms present in the beer. The purpose of this “optional” stage in beer preparation is to improve its shelflife, which also increases the market value of a beer.